The following description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
As industrialized nations increasingly shift from industry-based economies to knowledge-based economies, knowledge must be created and transferred across workers faster and more efficiently than ever before. In order to compete, today's knowledge organization increasingly needs its workers to read more, learn faster and more easily share the resulting knowledge with co-workers. Some of the specific processes in need of acceleration include: reading and comprehending content while capturing the learned information, assimilating learned information acquired from reading multiple pieces of content, synthesizing the assimilated learned information into higher-levels of knowledge, including findings, conclusions and recommendations, and collaborating with others across these processes and sharing the resulting knowledge.
Prior to the widespread use of electronic documents, workers would frequently utilize manual content-processing tools including highlighters, pens and sticky notes in order to capture what they learned as they read directly onto the printed documents they were reading. Other manual tools such as index cards and notepads were often used to extract learned information outside the documents themselves, enabling juxtaposition of cross-document findings and facilitating higher-level cognitive processing. Knowledge transfer was often facilitated by creating and distributing secondary narrative documents, engaging in meetings and discussions or use of other manual tools, policies and processes. As documents became increasingly available in electronic form, electronic tools were developed that mirrored these manual tools. Software packages with annotation capabilities enable workers to add electronic highlights and notes to the pages of electronic documents, substituting for their manual counterparts. Electronic note-taking programs and word processors have provided electronic substitutes for the manual index cards and notepads, facilitating outlining and report writing.
While some annotation tools are now available in electronic form, they have failed to significantly accelerate content processing, organizational learning and knowledge transfer. These tools are all designed around data structures and information management mechanisms that treat documents themselves as the informational unit of thought-processing, sharing and collaboration. This results in frequent wasteful activities by workers who use them.
Efforts have been made toward making better tools for assimilating and sharing knowledge. One example includes U.S. Pat. No. 6,973,616 to Cottrille et al. titled “Associating Annotations with a Content Source”, filed Jun. 24, 1999. Cottrille describes an annotation object that can point to content sources. The disclosed annotation objects can be handled separately from the source to which the corresponding annotations point. However, Cottrille fails to take into account that users of the annotation might not have permission or proper rights to access the annotation objects or the original content source.
A better approach would allow users to treat annotations as layers of metadata associated with one or more content sources and would ensure proper rights were enforced. Additional effort directed to managing annotations, even via parent—child relationships, include U.S. Pat. No. 7,243,301 to Bargeron et al. titled “Common Annotation Framework”, filed Apr. 10, 2002; U.S. Pat. No. 8,103,705 to Chitrapura et al. titled “System and Method for Storing Text Annotations with Associated Type Information in a Structured Data Store”, filed Oct. 23, 2008; U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0132907 to Shao et al. titled “Annotation Structure for Web Pages, Systems and Method for Annotation Web Pages”, filed Nov. 20, 2007; PCT Application Publication No. WO 2009/006070 to Stull titled “Techniques for Managing Annotation Transformation for Context Changes”, filed Jun. 23, 2008; U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0048047 to Tao titled “Online Annotation Management System and Method”, filed Mar. 2, 2006; U.S. Pat. No. 7,899,843 to Dettinger et al. titled “Expanding the Scope of an Annotation to an Entity Level”, filed Mar. 1, 2011; U.S. Pat. No. 7,512,985 to Grabarnik et al. titled “System, Method, and Computer Program Product for Implementing Search and Retrieval Compatible Data Obfuscation”, filed Mar. 31, 2009; U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0256866 to Lu et al. titled “Search System and Methods with Integration of User Annotations from a Trust Network”, filed Nov. 17, 2005; U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0263067 to Diederiks et al. titled “Method and System for Entering and Retrieving Content from an Electronic Diary”, filed Oct. 23, 2008; PCT Application Publication No. WO 2007/015184 to Mauro et al. titled “Apparatus and Method for Automatically Determining Privacy Settings for Content”, filed Feb. 8, 2007; U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0260060 to Smith et al. titled “Rich Media Collaboration System”, filed Oct. 15, 2009; U.S. Pat. No. 6,877,137 to Rivette et al. titled “System, Method and Computer Program Product for Mediating Notes and Note Sub-notes Linked or Otherwise Associated with Stored ore Networked Web Pages”, filed Apr. 5, 2005; and U.S. Pat. No. 7,594,258 to Mao et al. titled “Access Control Systems and Methods Using Visibility Tokens with Automatic Propagation”, filed Sep. 22, 2009. Unfortunately, these references also fail to provide insight into managing rights associated with annotations or other types of metadata.
Some minor effort has been directed to attaching security policies to annotations as discussed within IBM's FileNet P8 Platform documentation. The FileNet system provides for optionally assigning security policies to annotations where security can come from both its class or from its associated annotation object (see URL pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/p8docs/v4r5m1/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.p8.doc%2Fdeveloper_help%2Fcontent_engine_api%2Fguide%2Fannotations_concepts.htm). Although useful with respect to applying security, the FileNet system fails to appreciate that rights management policies, not necessarily a security policy, associated with metadata layer object can be in conflict with each other. For example, an annotation object created by a CEO object might not necessarily be available to a line worker. Thus there remains a need for a metadata layer management system capable of reconciling differences among rights policies of metadata layer objects.
Accordingly, there is a need for a fundamentally new way for workers to process content, and create and share knowledge across the organization that reduces this waste and mitigates the information overload they currently suffer as a result of it. There is further a need for a system that achieves this while meeting the needs of knowledge organizations to maintain needed security, privacy, copyright and other informational controls.
These and all other extrinsic materials discussed herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.
All publications identified herein are incorporated by reference to the same extent as if each individual publication or patent application were specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.
In some embodiments, the numbers expressing quantities of ingredients, properties such as concentration, reaction conditions, and so forth, used to describe and claim certain embodiments of the invention are to be understood as being modified in some instances by the term “about.” Accordingly, in some embodiments, the numerical parameters set forth in the written description and attached claims are approximations that can vary depending upon the desired properties sought to be obtained by a particular embodiment. In some embodiments, the numerical parameters should be construed in light of the number of reported significant digits and by applying ordinary rounding techniques. Notwithstanding that the numerical ranges and parameters setting forth the broad scope of some embodiments of the invention are approximations, the numerical values set forth in the specific examples are reported as precisely as practicable. The numerical values presented in some embodiments of the invention may contain certain errors necessarily resulting from the standard deviation found in their respective testing measurements.
Unless the context dictates the contrary, all ranges set forth herein should be interpreted as being inclusive of their endpoints and open-ended ranges should be interpreted to include only commercially practical values. Similarly, all lists of values should be considered as inclusive of intermediate values unless the context indicates the contrary.
As used in the description herein and throughout the claims that follow, the meaning of “a,” “an,” and “the” includes plural reference unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Also, as used in the description herein, the meaning of “in” includes “in” and “on” unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.
The recitation of ranges of values herein is merely intended to serve as a shorthand method of referring individually to each separate value falling within the range. Unless otherwise indicated herein, each individual value with a range is incorporated into the specification as if it were individually recited herein. All methods described herein can be performed in any suitable order unless otherwise indicated herein or otherwise clearly contradicted by context. The use of any and all examples, or exemplary language (e.g. “such as”) provided with respect to certain embodiments herein is intended merely to better illuminate the invention and does not pose a limitation on the scope of the invention otherwise claimed. No language in the specification should be construed as indicating any non-claimed element essential to the practice of the invention.
Groupings of alternative elements or embodiments of the invention disclosed herein are not to be construed as limitations. Each group member can be referred to and claimed individually or in any combination with other members of the group or other elements found herein. One or more members of a group can be included in, or deleted from, a group for reasons of convenience and/or patentability. When any such inclusion or deletion occurs, the specification is herein deemed to contain the group as modified thus fulfilling the written description of all Markush groups used in the appended claims.